


Excercises In Futility

by lordcyanides



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, Blood Magic, Existential Angst, First Enchanter Orsino - Freeform, Gen, existential philosophy, just needed to find a new victim for my existential philosophy and orsino is perfect, mentions of Uldred, no relationships - Freeform, only despair, orsino has inhuman metacognition abilities, somniar magic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21697270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lordcyanides/pseuds/lordcyanides
Summary: An one-shot featuring the musings of a mage who keeps going because of necessity.
Kudos: 3





	Excercises In Futility

Deep within the Gallows’ guts, in a small tower looming over the miserable expanse of irons and ironies that is the Kirkwall Circle of Magi, the First Enchanter is dreaming. 

A pale wrist carved in hieroglyphs made with surgical precision is dangling off the bed; a crimson trail the only sign of life that trickles down and adorns long fingers. It drips from the signet ring into a pool onto the wooden floor underneath; like a liquid hourglass always giving by taking. The ominous metallic red mist of magic coming out of it and thickening the air was testimony to that; yet the crackling from the hearth, the rain cascading down the barred narrow window and the enchanter’s steady breathing made the whole scenery seem deceptively serene. Perhaps it was. When one’s home is a prison, does it make it any less of a home? _Does it make it any less of a prison?_

Inside the First Enchanter’s mind, however, serenity was a foreign concept. In a sense, that was the only true freedom any mage was allowed, and he would make use of it, even though he had no choice on the matter. How did that Chant go, again? “ _To you, my second-born, I grant this gift:_ _In your heart shall burn a_ _n unquenchable flame, a_ _ll-consuming, and never satisfied.”_ In the First Enchanter’s case, that flame burned in sleep as intensely as in his wake. Perhaps even more so. 

That was his rare gift -his curse: relentless consciousness and self-awareness, always and forever until he was dead, comatose, knocked out or made Tranquil; whatever came first. No more dreams, then. Orsino had once read that everyone’s existence is tied in a field; and free will is the illusion that either the field is never-ending or the rope is. He, of all people could not argue with that.

However, determinism did not need to be blind. To say “yes” to necessity and change the inevitable into something done of their own free will? That is perhaps the only humane way to deliverance. A pitiable way, yes, but there is no other.

 _“And what of revolt? The proud, quixotic reaction of mankind to conquer Necessity and make external laws conform to the internal laws of the soul, to deny all that is and create a new world according to the laws of one’s own heart, which are contrary to the inhuman laws of nature–to create a new world which is purer, better and more moral than the one that exists?”_ The flame within the First Enchanter’s bosom would ask, defiantly. 

Well, what of it. Mages do not get to have existential agonies; they do not get to exist, period. _Pain is every mage’s lot_ , like his only friend used to say back in Kinloch, and the First Enchanter had concluded that it is in fact _despair_ which births revolt. Not the gentle, spiritual kind of despair but the vile, brutal kind that leads an injured animal to attack its tormentor. There is no room for poetry; not yet, at least. Only for survival.

Was it not despair that made this particular gift to emerge in the first place? The First Enchanter still remembered the last night of peaceful sleep he had, many years ago; he could still taste the bitterness of guilt that night etched. If only he had woken up, rushed to Maud’s side, broken into the closet, prevented the inevitable… But he did not. He slept peacefully; were he not hopelessly _young_ he would have known it was the quiet before the storm.

And the storm _did_ come.   
Chaos. Anger. Pain. Agony.   
Then, an all-consuming Void.  
And finally, the Dreams came.

He was young and naive. He paid for both sins equally in one single night: the gray in his hair took the youth away and the gift of the Somniar took away the naivity. The pain took away all that was left. And still, the First Enchnter thought it was _fair_. Although everything else was _not_. 

_“Why do young people die?”_ The Flame inside him screamed. “ _Everything that happens in this world is unjust, unjust, unjust! I won’t be a party to it! I, the knife-eared worm, the mage slug, I! Why must the young die and the old wrecks like me go on living? What kind of justice is this? I shall never, never forgive the Maker for that, the day I die, if He has the cheek to appear in front of me, and if He is really and truly the Maker, He’ll be ashamed! Yes, yes, He’ll be ashamed to show himself to me, the mage-slug!“_

Death had no mercy. Everyone knew that much. Wht not many knew was that in the Gallows, Despair, the Mother of Gifts, was Death’s biggest ally. Slowly and tirelessly it ate through the living like mould, leaving but empty vessels for Death to claim, and it infuriated the First Enchanter. Especially because the young were most vulnerable to it.

“Why are you helping us?” a teenager had asked him earlier that day. There was nothing but hatred in his eyes -the kind of hatred and bitterness only a teenager is capable of. He had been brought to the Gallows mere days ago. “We are all lost causes, mistakes of nature only meant to cause destruction and ruin. You call it a gift, but I killed my own parents with it. My mother scolded me for not tidying up my room and it was all it took. You are an idiot to believe that there is any hope or redemption after that.” 

The First Enchanter knew; _of course_ he did. This was not the first such case that fell under his care -yet, somehow, the boy’s words, the look in his eyes, somehow scratched a wound that had never healed. His own brow furrowed and he fixed the insolent youth with an icy, stern glare as he felt his blood boil in anger. “Ever heard of Entropy?” he said, and the boy looked at him as if he had suddenly transformed into a monster. “I have seen such cases. People who drain life merely by their touch; make steel erode, turn forests into wastelands. And when there is nothing to absorb, the force turns to absorb themselves. I have seen little girls slowly melting away like candlewax, infants who looked like elders, children playing around covered in man-made exosceletons to prevent anyone from coming to contact with them; wearing their own sarcophagi while still living. Call me foolish, if you will. I am helping because regardless of what they are like; what _you_ are like, you deserve better. You deserve _life_.”

And tonight, the First Enchanter would make sure of it.

It was forbidden, and, until revently unheard of, but he and Uldred had developed this sort of magic together; a fine combination of a Somniar’s ability to shape dreams and blood magic’s fueling of energy. However the chance to test the spell in such a great scale hadn’t risen until now. Shaping the dreamworlds of hundreds at the same time: nconceivable, invaluable. However, putting the spell into practice revealed one drawback: great amounts of energy were required to control so many minds and blood -an excellent resource as it were- was not in limitless supply. The First Enchanter thought it was a small price to pay, regardless.

Dreaming was getting increasingly harder now and the crimson mist in the room had turned into thick fog, blurring out shapes and angles. The hearth had burned out long ago, yet the trickling of blood on the floor continued -albeit in a much slower pace. There was not much more left to give. However, the First Enchanter was content. From now on, his nights of disquiet would be put into good use; what was sacrificing himself every night so that his people could finally sleep at peace? Giving up what was already lost to provide comfort; efforts in vain, excercises in futility today, tomorrow, _ad infinitum_ for the sake of his people; was that not the heavy duty of a First Enchanter?

The first ray of dawn made it past the barred window of the tower, and illuminated a faint, sad smile upon his lips. The Gallows started to wake up. And Orsino’s mortal coil finally gave in, magic fading and the warm, unfamiliar comfort of unconsciousness embracing him at last. 


End file.
